ever bought a house that smelled like a used kitty litterbox??????????

[2TMama]

to what lengths did you have to go to get rid of the odor??

[Sarai]

Well, my apartment smelled like that when I moved in- we had to pull up the carpeting and replace it. :sick

[Tuesdayschild]

Take out all carpets and any remaining curtains. Wash everyhting. Repaint. Leave the windows open a long time. that pretty much cleared the smell for us...

[Mother of Sons]

We did although we didn't notice it until after we bought it. It's not bad in the winter but the summer is bad and we havent' gotten anything to get rid of it so far. We did replace the floor in the bathroom where it was really bad but there isn't much that can be done in the basement (unfinished)

[illinoismommy]

well this is the drastic... the house we bought to flip had dogs and cats that peed inside in virtually every corner. We not only tore up the "carpet" but also the wood underneath, and we are laying a whole new layer of plywood before installing carpet. We are also washing the walls and then painting.

[KLin]

Yep, anything that has been saturated with cat pee will smell that way. Hard work to replace if the cat had free roam. Lots of baking soda to start...re-paint, cartpet etc. So sorry. My mom rented out our house when I moved to college and the tenant had cats, dogs and big birds...Messy messy. We repainted, took up flooring and replaced with tile and some new carpet in the front room.

[2TMama]

the realtor tried to say you could paint w/ special paint and hire someone to professionally clean the carpeting............

but then I was thinking what if it's all the way down to the subflooring or whatever??

thanks for the input!

[2sunshines]

Cat urine is NASTY!

The first house we bought had some cat smell in it. It goes all the way into the padding of the carpet and even in to the floor.

We replaced all carpet and padding. Painted all walls. Scrubbed the floors. That was in 1997. I think now most of the smell is gone but for YEARS afterwards you'd get a small whiff once in a while.

[blessedwithboys]

Unless I had the money to paint everything with Kilz primer and replace the subfloor I wouldn't even consider it. We just bought a house and we looked at several that smelled like cats (or worse- cats AND air freshener :sick) and we basically just turned around and left.

[illinoismommy]

the realtor tried to say you could paint w/ special paint and hire someone to professionally clean the carpeting............

but then I was thinking what if it's all the way down to the subflooring or whatever??

thanks for the input!


I wouldn't buy it unless you could get a really good deal on it... the kind of deal that would make stripping the carpet and replacing the wood underneath worth it ... there's a reason we got such a good deal on the house we're fixing...

[Heather Micaela]

I wont even rent a place like that and i have cats. At the very least you have to rip out the carpet